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Cape Town - University of the Western Cape (UWC) students
spoke out on Thursday about their trauma following clashes with police and
their attempts to resolve an impasse.

Kamva Rubulana compared the UWC of the last two weeks to
“a prisoner of war camp”.

He believed the violence that played out on campus on
Wednesday would never have happened if management and students had worked
towards speaking “as one voice”.

“Us, as this so-called born-free generation, have been
labelled 'the lost generation'. It hurts me when this lost generation is trying
to find their direction and they are getting called names and all ridiculous
manner of things.”

“What must these people do now? Must they wander for 40
years in the desert?”

Addressing a media briefing in Bellville, he rubbished
claims students were “stupid” or trying to worm their way out of writing exams.

“Do you think these peopl ... are so afraid or want
to avoid exams so badly they are willing to do anything? [Which] smart people
wanting to go to university to get a degree would not want to write exams?
Hence the saying, 'common sense is not so common'.”

Rubulana said they had tried to be intellectual, but were
met with a “military voice”.

“If you are black and still speaking properly, you will
never get listened to. But, once you resort to other tactics, you very quickly
get listened to. What must we do?”

Final year student Luxolo Billie said the violence on
Wednesday was “very unfortunate” and they were not hooligans.

“The only time we were violent is because black
securities and police shot at us.”

Fellow student Palesa Mcophela believed police used more
violence at UWC than at the University of Cape Town (UCT).

She said students “were teargassed in their rooms and
police kicked down their doors”.

One student was in Tygerberg Hospital after being shot in
the head with a rubber bullet, she said, adding a neurologist would have to be
consulted.

Sabelo Skenjana said he spoke for the collective when he
said he had never before been so afraid.

“It’s the type of fear whereby when you drop the soap in
the shower, just that bang makes you want to run away. That is trauma.”

He said people asked for transformation at universities
and the youth delivered.

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